Before Beasts, There Was Sound
by LoweFantasy
Summary: A strange girl has been coerced into stealing Tyson's soul along with his bitbeast. All she has to do is sing. Without the ability to win back their bit beasts and souls in a fair match, Kai may have to resort to the skills the Abbey had really taught him, that of an assassin, and he has little room for mercy.
1. Beasts Series Order

Order of the "Before Beasts" series:

1\. Sound

2\. Fire

3\. Wind

4\. Water

5\. Metal

6\. Storms

7\. Lightning

8\. Ice

9\. Light

10\. Time

(freaking site keeps breaking down my chapters to code. X.X Sorry about that. I fix.)


	2. Not Just Dragoon

1

There was a general misconception about Kai. This was the idea that his 'lone wolf' thing was out of arrogance or hate for mankind, which he didn't see as up to his level. This was, to some extent, true. But, then, he would probably argue it was hard for anyone to not feel like they were surrounded by imbeciles when you were in a sport based off of children's spinning tops, and most of the players of said sports were, well, children. Course, there was an explanation to that as well, and there were some adults that played, and the generation that had gotten involved with Beyblade was finally growing up. Not to mention the left out fact that guns were banned by the entire world, and so Beyblades were sort of an outlet for aggression and….I digress.

The real reason that Kai often went off on his own was because he was shy. At least, that's the coquettish word for the mess of social anxiety and general social ineptitude that often left him frustrated, and therefore angry, at the world.

People just had too many hoops they needed you to jump through in order to get the desired result. Though they often lawded truth, truth was more often than not considered offensive. Most didn't want to change, and almost all feared hard work. Only an ounce had any ambition or real desire to have control over the world around them, and whenever faced with someone with said ambition—aka, everything they were not—they, well…how would you feel around someone who made you feel bad about yourself just by their existence?

Perhaps that was arrogance. But for now, standing a street down from where his team had got caught up in some street brawl in a filthy alley, Kai only knew that, when it came to Tyson and the others, the tables were switch. He became the common rabble. For it was only with them, with his self-proclaimed friends, that he began to see just how little and depraved he was.

"Why have you led us here? Don't tell me you're one of those creeps who are after our bits beasts!" shouted Tyson.

"Yeah, because it's really getting old!" added Max, who's voice had finally dropped at 16, albeit not by much.

"More or less," said the wry, feminine voice of a woman who could have been in her late twenties and thirties. "Either way, it's probably not the best idea to leave your precious blades hanging by your belts. Here."

Kai heard the chink of the metal blades against the leather of someone's fists. He leaned his hands on his knees in breathless relief. After all, 'lone wolf' or not, he was still their captain, and nobody stole from his team.

"If you want Drigger, however, you must battle me."

"Fine! I'll scrape the floor with you!" cried Tyson.

"Wait, Tyson, shouldn't we think about this? We have no idea why she's led us here."

Thank you, Ray, for once more being the only other member of the team with an ounce of common sense.

Ray's voice continued. "How about you hand over Drigger and I won't mess you up."

Kai grinned. Common sense indeed. So many of their problems in the past would have been fixed, even avoided, with just a good punch. Freaking do-gooders.

The woman laughed. "Beating up a woman for a top? I'd love to hear you explain that to the police."

And the reason why said punch was never delivered. Good guys always had to follow the rules. It was part of being the good guys.

Again, Kai wanted to barf in his mouth. Somewhere, out there, there was a bunch of children watching them like a Saturday morning cartoon with snot hanging out of their noses as they learned about good and evil and friendship and how to never give up on your dreams because the _damn planet works that way_ said _no one ever._

Albeit, they had had their share of diabolical villains. Maybe he was part of a children's show. Ugh.

"Fine, then hurry up, you thief. There's a BLT with my name on it I had to ditch because of you."

Tyson's ever heroic reasoning.

The woman started the countdown. At "let it rip!" and the familiar sound of blades churning at the air, Kai stepped out from around the corner and started his way towards the ally. The street which connected the two had to be the poster child for 'slums,' and he once again wondered why they kept finding themselves in these sorts of situations.

"Dragoon!"

A spit of metal. A hiss of rebuttle. Max and Ray gasped.

"She didn't even flinch!"

Of course not. How often did 'the bad guy' go down nice and easy so they could move on with their lives?

Why was he here again? Oh yes, his team. His…friends. Just in case. And it was their get together—another homemade tournament among themselves to see who was the best. Another attempt on his part to become better so he could cease feeling so inferior.

But just as he stepped into the allyway to see the backs of his teammates, and the dark haired bitch who he had chased along the rooftops just behind his team, the most curious sound came to his ears.

At first, he thought it was some sort of enhanced violin, its strings vibrating almost painfully too hard. Then, a second later, when Tyson's blade stopped in its tracks to glow a brilliant blue, he realized it was a voice. A human voice, singing.

He watched in dawning horror behind his teammates as the nebulous blue light of Tyson's Dragoon extracted itself from his blade without his command. The woman, a wiry, athletic type with plain features and utilitarian wear, pulled out a blue…marble of sorts about the size of a tennis ball. At the same time, Tyson gave a startled shout, his hands clapping to the sides of his head as though to block out the voice.

But the smirking she-man wasn't singing. She only held out the marble. Dragoon sucked towards it like matter towards a black hole. Along with it went what looked like to be strands of Tyson's hair, though it was hard to tell in the gray light of the overcast day.

The marble stopped glowing. All traces of Dragoon vanished. Tyson's blade stopped spinning. And Tyson fell to the ground along with it.

As Max and Ray rushed to Tyson's side, Kai dashed for the woman. Screw what was appropriate, he was not going to let this happen again.

He didn't bother going for his launcher. He pulled back his fist—

And missed as she lithely dodged him.

"Ayah!" she cried.

With trained instincts and years of combat training in the Abbey, he turned his momentum into a pivot, twisting his body to hit her, just as she was ducking. His fist nicked her, throwing her off just enough to fall to her knees. He pulled back his leg—

But a piercing shriek sent pain spiking through his skull. His muscles seized up. His bones turned brittle and cracked. He started to fall backwards. Just as his numb head rolled back onto his shoulders, his gaze went up to the fire escape stairs still attached to one of the old brick buildings that made up the alley.

And he saw what had to be the singer. Wide blue eyes met his beneath the too big hood of a dark gray hoodie, almost the same color as the stormy sky above.

He didn't make out much more than that before the figure scaled the fire escape and vanished along with the woman who now had Dragoon.

At least the screeching had stopped. He sat himself up, half surprised none of his bones _had_ broken…and that his ears still worked since he could hear Max repeating Tyson's name.

"Give him a moment," said Ray, who had taken Kai's sudden appearance in stride like the rest of the team. "You know what it's like…losing your bit beasts."

"But it's not that." Max's tenor reached a new high. "There's something wrong. There's something missing, something's not right—Tyson! Please man, I'm freaking out here, just groan or say something!"

"Why does he just keep staring like that? Tyson, I know it hurts, but you got to say something."

By now, even Kai's concern had been incited. He made his way to where Max and Ray shook the shoulders of Tyson, who hadn't budged from where he had fallen on his knees. Max and Ray moved aside for him as he crouched down to get a better look at the annoyance of his life through his bangs.

"Oy, Tyson. Put on your big boy pants and stop worrying your teammates for drama's sake. We got to track her down before she tries getting to the rest of us." Per usual. His life as the guardian of a sacred bit beast was like shampoo. Rinse, lather, and repeat.

When Tyson didn't spark up, as he always _always_ did whenever Kai talked to him like that, his concern grew to unease. He dared to reach out and give the boy a nudge, but still he didn't respond.

"His eyes," squeaked Max. "Look at his eyes!"

And he did.

And they didn't look back.


	3. Plug Your Ears

2

After checking to make sure that, yes, Tyson did still have a heartbeat, Kai had pulled Tyson's arms over his shoulders. Max started jabbering about not knowing where a hospital was, but luckily Kai did know his way to the hospital. It was something of a hobby (or an OCD sort of ritual to alleviate his anxiety), to know any town he was going to be in for more than a few days like the back of his hand, no matter the size.

The moment Kai stumbled into the ER, flanked by Max and Ray, nurses converged on him to take Tyson from his back. One asked if they knew Tyson's guardians. Ray said yes, but it was Kai who filled out the paper work and handed in all of Tyson's contact information, including the phone numbers and email addresses of his father, older brother, and Mr. Dickenson. Again, he had been trained to achieve excellence in all things. He took his job as team captain very seriously—probably more seriously than his teammates would ever know.

But it was hours after Tyson's grandfather came barreling into the waiting room before a doctor came out with any word on his condition.

"All the tests are coming back clean," he said, all apologetic. "He seems to be in a coma, though we can't find anything wrong with his brain. He hasn't even a bruise on him."

After passing the paperwork to Tyson's grandfather and blubbering more redundant reasons as to why he had no idea why Tyson had turned into a meat puppet, they finally all trooped out the hospital and into the Granger van, leaving Tyson behind.

They waved the unusually, but expectedly gloomy Grandpa Granger to bed and went to pull out their futons and dress for bed. Ray was the one who finally spoke.

"It's like he's a shell." He tore off his tunic and pulled on his white night shirt. "What did that…sound do to him? It's like it took more than just Dragoon."

"That sound was a she," said Kai. "I saw a girl up in that fire escape."

Max ran his hands up his face and through his already messy blond hair. "So, what did she do?"

"I think she was singing."

Both boys shuddered, but didn't look at him. They weren't completely stupid, after all. A part of them had already known this.

"So, Tyson launches his blade," Ray pinched the bridge of his nose. "Hits the other blade, this girl sings, and Dragoon gets sucked out without a fight and Tyson becomes comatose." He groaned. "Ugh, this is starting to sound like some freaky ghost story. Did she suck up his soul along with Dragoon or something?"

Max shrugged, but Kai had already lain down and pulled his covers up to his ears with his back to them. Max offered to turn off the light, plunging them into darkness. The only light that crept through the windows was the distant blue-orange glow of the city, as storm clouds swallowed the moon.

Kai listened to the shuffling of the other two in their covers. Something urged him to say something, to give them some direction, give them some idea of how they could regain control on the situation. But the only thing to do was to let them sleep. They'd need it.

After a few minutes—long enough for Kai to figure they had fallen asleep—Max's voiced piped up.

"What if we get Dragoon back and Tyson's stuck like that?"

Ray, sounding wide awake, said, "We don't even know if what's come over his is permanent. For all we know, he could come charging in tomorrow morning to start his quest to save Dragoon."

"Yeah. And we'll find her tomorrow. We always do. Or she'll find us." He went quiet, before asking, his voice squeezing to a nervous pitch that Kai hated. It always managed to make him feel guilty, and he did not do guilty. "If she can sing our bit beasts and souls out the moment we let our blades loose, how are we going to…?"

And because he wouldn't be able to sleep after that whiney tone without saying something, Kai spoke up. "Get a grip, Max. They're just people. We'll figure this out."

Because he was going out for blood if they didn't.

Out of sheer force of will, Kai managed to get to sleep. He woke up when Kenny threw open the door with a bang.

"I leave you for one day!" he screeched. "One day, and not only does Dragoon get stolen, but Tyson's in a freaking _coma?_ "

"Jeeze, Chief, do you have to yell?" asked Max, rubbing shadowy eyes. Kai observed with a inward frown that neither of them looked as though they had slept much, and he suddenly wanted to strangle the bespeckled boy.

"What happened? _How did this happen?_ Please someone tell me you know how to fix this?!"

"Calm down!" cried Ray, who had a hand in his unkempt hair. The binding to his hair had half-undone itself in the night, and he had poof of mane sticking out from his shoulders.

"Calm down? Tyson's in the hospital! In a _coma_! Most of the time people don't wake up from comas, and they don't even have a clue why he's like that, so how can he—"

"He's lost his soul," said Kai irritably.

That shut him up, mostly out of the virtue that Kenny had not a word prepared for being confronted by soul-snatching.

Max and Ray waved their hands in the air, alarmed.

"We don't know that for sure—"

"It's just a theory—a really good theory, I think—"

"See, there was this girl and—"

Kenny listened with his laptop clutched to his side as they explained. Kai decided he had done his part and got up to take a shower and find some strong coffee. He meant to be quick about it so he could get back to work, but caught himself staring at the tiles of the shower for countless minutes in a sort of daze. A darkness he knew too well threatened to overwhelm him, and he let it.

Only once he had let it have its time roaring and tearing about in his mind, making his stomach twist tight like a fist and his chest ache, did it finally leave him to step out of the shower. He dried, brushed his teeth, the whole nine yards. A presentable human being. Got to the kitchen. Got to the coffee. Drank it in boiling gulps as he stared out into the back yard where Kenny's floating stadium still drifted in the pond.

 _We'll have to wait until they come to us,_ he thought with irritation. _Damn it, I need to get a Doberman or something._

Because there was nothing Kai hated more than having to wait to be acted upon. To be acted upon meant you weren't in control of your destiny, and that meant you were at the mercy of others to do what they willed with you. One had to act in order to have any say on how much shit gets piled on top of you. It was why ultimate power had been his dream for years. Power was having control over change. Ultimate power meant ultimate control over what happened to you. With power, no one could abuse you, use you, beat you, hurt you, betray you—hell, with power, you didn't even need people. Once you had control over your own happiness, what need was there for others to obtain it?

But, of course, Tyson and the others had proved him otherwise on that frozen lake so long ago. The years following had only unveiled to him just how twisted and warped the Abbey and his grandfather really had made him. And to think he thought he had been powerful and talented enough to avoid such a fate: the fate of a victim.

To be acted upon.

He dropped his mug in the sink and went back for the others. He found them still discussing what had happened in the dojo.

"Max, Ray, get dressed and eat something. We need to get going."

"What are we going to do?" asked Max even as he stood.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Ray. "We're going to make bait of ourselves and wait for that blader to come find us."

"But what if it's a different blader this time?"

"Well…I guess we could always look around for that girl Kai saw. We'll just have to find places where there isn't a lot of people, like that alley she lured us into last time. With no one around, should be easy to spot her, right?"

"Why am I not surprised by the amount of uncontrolled variables in this?" moaned Kenny. "I'm going to do a search, see if I find anything while you guys dress. Let me know when you're leaving. Dizzy's infrared scanner should help in picking out anyone that's hidden."


	4. A Sound to Be Felt

3

They didn't have to wait long. And they were in luck—this particular villain must not have a healthy cash of bladers to draw from, as the same athletic, boyish older woman challenged them once more, this time blatantly in public view as the group had been…well, making targets of themselves for her. Even so, none of them had expected her to walk up to them on a busy sidewalk next to an equally busy intersection.

People instinctively made room as she brandished her launcher like a gun, a hand on one narrow, bony hip, and a confident smirk Kai always thought looked horrible on anyone but himself.

"How about this," she said over the noise of passing cars. "Since I know you won't just hand over the beasts, if one of you can push my blade into the street, I'll give you back Dragoon."

And just to back up her point, she pulled out the blue, stormy tennis ball-sized marble from before. It gleamed in the foggy sunlight. The storm from the night before had yet to clear the skies completely.

Kai nodded to the other two, but it was Max who stepped up. Nothing playful or kind crossed his face as he pointed his launcher at her.

"I'll shove your blade under a car," he said. "And this time your stupid trick won't work."

She plucked her blade from its pouch and clicked it on, swinging to rest on her other hip as she did so. "If it weren't completely illegal, I'd say you're absolutely adorable when you're determined."

Max bared his teeth, freckles scrunching up his nose by the force of his scowl. "No one hurts my friends and gets away with it!"

The moment he snapped on Draciel, he started the countdown, not even caring to wait for her to be ready.

"Let it rip!"

Kenny barely had the time to drop against the nearby shop wall and snap open his laptop. Ray jumped to his side as the crowd scrambled out of reach of the whirring blades that could easily take off their legs. Car horns blared as bodies accidentally fell into the street.

Kai, ever cool, stood his ground, his eyes to the rooftops.

"Dizzy!"

" _I'm rolling, Chief! But the infrareds won't work here, there are too many people!_ "

"She couldn't do everything we expected her to," said Ray, hands fisted to his sides. "Best you get your earplugs in too, Chief."

With a little 'eep!' Kenny whipped out the earplugs from his pocket and proceeded to stuff them into his ears.

Kai took that chance to put his in as well. He hated dulling his senses, and he had waited till the last moment to put them in. Luckily, Max had not done the same, and he could see the neon orange spots of foam peeking out from his blond hair.

"Draciel!" He cried. "Show her no mercy! Haul her into the street!"

The spinning blur of purple nearly hissed as it thudded itself against the other gray-blue blade, which, unlike before, was shoved back with a small shower of concrete. People were beginning to make a circle about them, their alarm giving way to curiosity. If he didn't have his earplugs in, Kai knew he would have probably heard their names murmured about as the world champions were recognized.

It was no use keeping his eyes to the battle. He kept them to the rooftops. Ray would watch the ground. Though Kai felt uneasy with their audience. None of them had expected there to be a crowd. There could be casualties.

It happened right as he glanced down to meet the woman's gaze, which wasn't to Max or the battle, but to him. She gave him a smile that curled back her thin cheeks. She had big, horse-like teeth. Strong teeth.

"Ayah!" he read her lips say.

Kai snapped his head back to the roofs.

But he didn't see the singer until he heard her, despite the ear plugs.

The voice sounded as it had before, distinctly earthy and rich. But this time, instead of the high keen of a violin's string being shaken out of its life, it was a low treble that hummed a breath from his chest. At the same moment his eyes saw her, gray hoodie blended into the off-white siding of the next building, he knew the ear plugs wouldn't work. This was a noise felt, not just heard.

But he was moving, all legs, all flight, flinging himself through and over the battle. The girl vanished behind the bodies he shoved through, tucking herself behind a dumpster. As he flung the last person aside, he caught a glimpse of her pale mouth opened up to the sky like a baby bird's waiting for food.

Just as his hands reached for her, she ducked. He caught himself against the dumpster with a bang, already flinging his arm back for her. She once more ducked, then jumped to the side from another fist. This surprised him. Not even Ray could completely dodge him. Block him, yes, but she moved as though knowing where he'd hit.

He barely caught the crowd's gasp through his ear plugs. For just a flash of a second, Kai was distracted. The woman would be coming through here—or to the street—no here she came—

It was a second too long. The grey hoodie figure sped down the small space between the buildings, vaulting over the fence at the other end. Kai made a split second decision and dove back into the crowd, catching the woman's wrist as she passed. She turned on him, snarling. There was a flash of pain across his face and he let go of her in shock. Blood was filling his eye.

He plucked out his earplugs just in time to hear: "Oh my god, Max!"

Screaming. People had started to scream. Hands reached out for him, and he slapped at them, skin crawling with bad memories. He had to get to his team—had to get to the girl—no, get to Kenny. Kenny would have the answers, Kenny had the camera.

The crowd parted before him easily now. He wondered just how grisly a sight he must make, half blinded by blood. What had she done to him?

Kenny and Ray clutched to either side of Max, whose head hung almost to his navel. Kai's foot landed on something that sparked in the pavement and he picked up Max's blade in its final rotations.

The bit was a blank, empty yellow.

 **As always, I update AT LEAST once a week, though I often update more, and I almost always finish my stories. Since I have a few people interested, this story is green to go so far. ^.^ Please let me know what you think.**


	5. To Kill the Blade

4

"The ear plugs were supposed to work. Why didn't they work?"

Ray sat in a daze against the wall of Tyson's room while Kenny typed away fervently at Tyson's cluttered desk. Kai sat at the end of Tyson's bed, looking upon the chaos he had once found disgusting, but now found oddly calming. Somehow, through all the lazy mess, Tyson's bed had managed to remain clean, made, and freshly laundered. He wondered what kind of habitual insanity would move Tyson to make his bed but leave his clothes and miles of…whatever crushed up against his walls and furniture. He occasionally dabbed alcohol soaked cotton balls across the shallow gashes on his face. Freaking woman must have had a manicure of steel.

"Why didn't they work?" said Ray, more of a plea now than a question. He had taken on a pallor Kai wasn't all that comfortable with.

"Her blade," murmured Kenny. "I've never seen anything like it. It makes Max's defense look like tin foil. No wonder Tyson wasn't able to move it!"

" _Not much left for attacking, though,_ " said Dizzy.

"She doesn't need it." Kai put aside the cotton ball to lie back on Tyson's bed and wait for the round of sting to dissipate. His bed smelled of lavender laundry detergent. Did Tyson even sleep in his bed?

"Yeah, all she needs is to stall us long enough for that…thing to start singing," said Ray, who closed his eyes. "But the ear plugs, did he still hear it? Sometimes you hear past ear plugs. But those were rubber tipped, it should have blocked out everything!"

" _That's because it isn't about what you hear. It's about what you feel—the vibrations._ "

Kenny's typing hitched. "Oh my gosh…"

Ray hurried to Kenny's side, nearly tripping over a pair of old trousers. Kai shot back up and jumped over to his side, displacing a small cloud of red stained cotton balls in the process.

The screen displayed something like a blank, black and white space that rippled with gray waves. Two black, seemingly shivering blobs kept crashing, setting loose a divulge of ripples across the screen, then repeating the action.

"What are we looking at?" asked Ray.

"When I couldn't use the infrared to find her, Dizzy pulled up the microphone just in time to catch this. Right now it's on display in a visual format, much like what a music player does to make those pretty visuals on the screen while a song plays."

"Yes, we can have the lesson later," grumbled Kai. "What does it mean?"

"See those two spots?" He pointed at the two black blobs that kept crashing into each other and disrupting the entire screen. "That's Max's and that woman's blade. When they hit they sent off a pattern of vibrations—or rather, their blades hitting each other made the other vibrate like a tuning fork." He typed something, clicked in the corner, and pulled up a taller graph running from red to green to yellow. "This is the length of the sound waves that person was singing. They offset Max's blade's vibrations perfectly, and are hyperbolized as well. When they did that…" He typed, and clicked back to the ripple screen, except this time the half of the screen where one of the black blobs sat went completely black. "Dead. No vibrations whatsoever."

"So why did that force Draciel out?" asked Ray impatiently. "And why along with Max's soul?"

"Unfortunately, I'm no acousticologist, but I do know one thing," he clicked play and watched as Max's blob sent the screen rippling with gray, and then when completely black. "Everything in this world is vibrating. You know that myth about an opera singer hitting a high note and shattering glass? That isn't so farfetched. If you can hit just the right frequency to increase the natural vibrations of an object, you could shatter anything. But they didn't shatter Max's blade, or Tyson's, for that matter." Kenny clicked back to the sound graph, highlighting a section of yellow, waving lines and pulling them over to another sound graph, where the peaks of one line offset the lows of another. "They diminished the vibrations to an almost imperceptible level."

 _"They killed it,"_ said an uncharacteristically grim Dizzy. " _A beyblade is the heart and body of a bit beast, kids. Without the 'beating' I guess you could say, Draciel and most likely Dragoon was squeezed out, just like anyone's spirit would leave once their body died."_

That left a rather stunned silence. Ray's hand on the back of the chair Kenny sat in had gone knuckle-white.

" _Oh, they can return once their avatar instills life into the blade once more,_ " she said, all warm comfort. " _But in the condition they're in now, they aren't going to be launching any blades, let alone with 'life'."_

"But why did their souls get taken?" asked Ray. "What does the vibration of blades have to do with their souls? Max's body didn't get…get killed."

A familiar and old coldness had fallen over Kai. It numbed him from his chest to his fingers till it flipped to a warm fire. He couldn't call it rage, no. It was far more powerful than that. But he was never the one to waste time on labeling emotions.

"So it was hitting her blade with his own that set off the vibrations for them to hear?"

Kenny and Ray looked at him. Their surprised annoyed him. What, did they think him stupid?

"I can't believe I didn't think of that," said Kenny. "It really was just like a tuning fork. But—but how on earth would anyone be able to hear that? The only reason Dizzy was able to pick it up on the after-market microphone we have is because she's a bit beast and she can enhance my computer like your bitbeasts enhance your blades—but no human could have done that."

"She's singing out souls, Kenny," said Kai, voice as dry as arctic ice. "I would hardly call that human."

Another stunned silence. In it, the visual recordings of the waves played over and over; the black blobs crashing into one another on repeat.

Ray's hand slipped off from the back of the chair.

"Then…that's it. How do you defeat someone you can't hit?"

"Simple," said Kai, going back to sit on Tyson's bed again and grabbing a fresh cotton ball and the rubbing alcohol. Moving has face had started up the bleeding again, and he could feel the tickle of another drip down his cheek. "You play dirty."

Kenny and Ray looked at him like he was insane, and this time he let his irritation show.

"What, our opponents can play as dirty as they like and we can't? Face it, the moment Tyson ended up in the hospital this stopped being a game. This is survival, short and dirty." _And_ , he thought wryly as he pressed the refilled cotton ball to the bleeding and clenched his teeth _, my real forte_.

"What are you saying, Kai?" squeaked Kenny. "We can't—we can't just attack her like a bunch of savages with our blades or…or…Kai, that's just wrong!"

He snorted. "I beg to differ."

"Kai's right, Kenny," said Ray, almost in a whisper, his gaze hidden beneath his bangs. "This stopped being just a duel of blades. If we don't do something, we'll end up like vegetables along with our bitbeasts."

 _"And you're in luck. All that defense means that tank of a beyblade is slow!_ " buzzed Dizzy.

"You-you-you're not g-g-going to ki-kill her, are you?" squeaked Kenny at an all time high.

Ray gave a short bark of laughter, but Kai didn't laugh.

"Don't be crazy, we're not out for blood. We just need to get her to let go of those orb thingies. If we get those back, we can figure out how to get Dragoon and Draciel back into their blades, right? Oh, let me help with that." He grabbed the gauze Kai had unpeeled and set it over his eyebrow and brow with practiced fingers.

" _It's not that simple,"_ said Dizzy.

"What do you mean?" asked Ray, while Kai just raised the eyebrow not being bandaged.

Kenny squeezed his knees, heels bouncing against a pile of snack wrappers beneath Tyson's desk. "Didn't you hear us the first time when we said the blader themselves have to return life to the blade? Forget about getting whatever is in those marble-rock thing of theirs out, if Tyson and Max aren't the ones to launch their blades, the right vibrations won't be set off in the blade." He paused. "Maybe…maybe that has something to do with why their souls were taken as well. There's a bond between your spirits and that of your bitbeasts. Maybe that's how that certain life-like quality—that mixture of vibrations—is given to the blade in the first place. Maybe the vibrations are even just a trademark of something much deeper, like a mark of your souls."

"We'll figure that all out once we get them back from those morons," said Ray. "Right Kai? Hold this for a minute."

He shrugged as he obeyed Ray and held the gauze in place. "We'll just have to kidnap that girl too."

That was the last straw. Kenny crinkled up in the chair like a juice packet getting every last ounce of air and liquid sucked out.

"Assault is one thing, but _kidnapping_! Holly crap, guys, _we are not criminals!_ Shouldn't we call the police or something?"

Kai snorted. "That would go over well."

"Yeah," said Ray, setting in place the last strand of medical tape. He had to wedge a bit into Kai's hair. "'Hey, our friends' souls got stolen by this girl's singing, can you make her sing just the right song that will get their souls back? Please and thank you.'"

"Ugh, you know what I mean!" Kenny dug his hands through his hair and back down his face furiously, jostling his glasses. "Oh, I'm going insane, now I'm wishing Tyson were here! He'd get what I'm saying."

"Oh yes, oh so noble Tyson." Kai pushed himself off the bed once more and moved passed Ray to the door. "If that's all, I'm going to train. Ray, I suggest you come along too."

"Train? What's the point of training at a time like this?"

"Isn't it obvious, Chief?" Ray moved to follow Kai, who waited for him in the doorway. "All this time we've trained to battle other beyblades, never to directly attack anyone. If we're not careful, we could seriously hurt someone."

"Or kill them," said Kai.

Kenny twisted up, if possible, even tighter, squawking the word " _Kill?!_ "

Ray frowned at him. "That seems a little extreme."

But the sad thing about it, Kai thought, as he remembered the dark halls of the Abbey and the sharp tang of his own blood, was that it wasn't. Not in the least. Because what better weapon was there than one where your enemy least expected it?


	6. The Same To Wound and Heal

5

Kai would be lying to himself if he said there wasn't some part of him that was a little relieved that it had been Tyson and Max who were taken first. Ray, albeit sometimes ditzy in his 'I was raised in a mountain village of cat-people' sort of way, was calmer, quieter, and not like herding cats when it came to training. Kai would give instructions, point, and Ray would nod and listen as any respectable blader would have.

Nevertheless, as the day flowed into the warm summer night, he found his ears buzzing from the silence. He remembered these quiet days. To think he had ever missed them. Because although he was annoying and hands down the bane of his life, Tyson had still been his best friend—if Kai could ever claim to have ever had one. But that was just it. Tyson made friends like breathing air. He was the poster child for how the world should be, and every Kai could never be. He had hated him as much as fire could hate water, but in the end, that was what drew his respect. Because despite being so painfully naïve that he should probably have died a horrible death by now, Tyson was strong. Where Tyson should have fallen before Kai's cold might—before reality-he not only defeated him, but rescued him.

And since children's cartoons had no grip on reality, the fact that Tyson still ran strong in spite of a world that attacked him time after time had proven long ago that he was greater than Kai. He couldn't help but resent him a little for that. He suspected he always would.

He knew Ray felt much the same, as he didn't quit tearing his rip cord even after Kenny came out and announced that it was almost midnight, even after Drigger hadn't missed the target for the last hour and his fingers had started to bleed. Any good training session involved blood, in Kai's opinion.

Wood splinters flew out from the sheet of plywood. Kai caught Dranzer with flecks of sawdust raining from his fingertips, tearing off the bandage from his face at the same time. Over the hours it had become soaked with his own sweat, making the cuts from his hairline to his eyebrow sting.

"Looks like we're going to need a new dummy," said Ray, breathing hard.

"That's the last board," said a very drowsy Kenny. "Can we call it quits now? I can't sleep with the racket your making, and only God knows why Grandpa Granger can."

Drigger leapt into Ray's gloved hand. One of the pieces of cloth he had wrapped about his fingers came loose from the contact, splotched with scarlet.

"You could have just gone home," Ray said.

"And what, leave you two to get your souls sucked out too? No way no way!"

"It's not like you'd be able to do anything about it," said Ray. "I mean, unless you wanted to practice blading—"

"For the last time, I will not practice assaulting someone! I still think this is wrong."

"Then if you have nothing else to contribute, shut up." Kai brought back his fingers from his forehead to find them only lightly specked with blood. The scabs had only cracked and would harden in the fresh air. Perhaps he could make do without a bandage.

Kenny fell quiet at that. Ray gave Kai a look he and the rest of the team often made whenever they thought Kai had gone just a little too far. But what else was there to say? Kenny wasn't helping anything by staying out here with them and losing sleep. It was his brain they needed, and brains needed sleep. Ray had already said as much earlier when Kenny came out to announce what time it was.

But instead of squawking in indignation, Kenny went still.

"Alright," he stood up, tucking his laptop under his arm. "I'll head home. Call me if you get any developments."

With that, he turned back into the Granger household and closed the door behind him.

Ray turned on him. "That was harsh. This is just as hard on him as it is on the rest of us."

"And he wouldn't have left if I had been any nicer," said Kai, rolling his shoulders. "He needs his sleep. We all do."

Ray sighed and wriggled his fingers, wincing. "Maybe I shouldn't have gone so far. Man, I tore up my fingers good this time."

"I can fix that," said a tiny voice.

Ray and Kai snapped around, slapping on their blades to their launchers and taking aim.

Crouched on the top of the Dojo's wall, all baggy jeans and too big ugly sweatshirt, was the singer. The shadow cast by the orange light of the porch hid her face, though Kai re-verified that the voice was definitely feminine. This was a girl.

"Y-y-you're fingers," she squeaked. "I can m-m-make them better."

"What the hell do you want?" asked Ray. "Come to take our bitbeasts too? Well bring it on, we're ready."

She cringed back, nearly slipping down the other side of the wall. "I-I don't—I never meant—"

Kai unhooked his finger from the ripcord and held his hand back to Ray. "Ray."

Ray hesitated, but lowered his launcher somewhat. "If you're not here for our bitbeasts, why are you?"

"I-I just wanted to…to ask, because I didn't…" The round grey hood of the hoodie rose higher, as though the hidden eyes within sought to peer at them. "I didn't mean to—to hurt your friends. I only meant to draw out the animal spirits."

"Well, you did," said Ray.

She flinched. "But that wasn't supposed to happen." She paused. "Which is why…what are bitbeasts?"

Kai and Ray's launchers lowered even more in surprise. "What?"

"What are bitbeasts?" she asked. "I have no idea how to draw out souls—I had no idea it could even happen—so how could the bitbeasts have? They're just suppose to be animal spirits. That's…that's what she said."

"You mean you've been stealing our bitbeasts without even knowing what they are?" said Kai. He wasn't surprised. This often was the case with those who make it their business being thieves. Or those with sensitive consciences, as she was proving to be.

The shadowy figure wilted, ducking her face down, which allowed the porch light to touch her pale chin and quivering lips. "I never meant to hurt anyone."

"Then what do you think stealing does, huh?" snapped Ray. "I'll tell you what they are. They're our friends, our companions. Their connected to us in ways you could never understand, so either give them back to us or get out of here!"

Kai held up his hand to stop Ray once more, but his eyes were to their visitor, who had started to tremble. He was in less of a mood than Ray to play nice or feel sorry for her. That had always been Tyson and Max's job. Any guilt she must feel now was her just deserts.

But he remembered what Kenny and Dizzy had said. Without her, even if they got the marbles with Dragoon and Draciel back, Tyson and Max would still be as good as dead.

"What was it you said about Ray's fingers?" he asked, hoping to keep her there long enough for him to think up a plan. Maybe if they could lure her down, he could get his arm about her and…

"I-I could maybe, um, heal them?"

Her voice was so soft now they could barely hear her. Kai exchanged a look with Ray.

"Well? Want to let her try?"

Ray opened his mouth to protest, but suddenly stopped as he recognized what Kai was trying to remind him off. They needed her.

"Yeah," he looked back to the girl. "If you say you can, I guess I'm game. Though if you try anything funny—"

"I won't," she said quickly, sliding down from the top of the wall to land on all fours. She rose to her feet and approached them cautiously, slowly. Kai slipped his blade and launcher back into his belt, hoping it looked to her as a sign of peace rather than him freeing his hands.

As she drew nearer and closer to the amber porch light, the shadow of the hood peeled back, revealing more clear, pale skin, a small nose, and those same large, doe-like blue eyes.

What Kai hadn't seen, however, was her beauty.

Ray let out a small gasp and she froze, biting her full, delicate bottom lip. A few curls of hair curled about her cheek bones, highlighting a heart-shaped face, though Kai couldn't decipher their color in the orangish light.

"I won't hurt you," she said in that same, tiny voice, hugging her hands to her chest. "I promise. I…" She looked down at her folded hands, then reached them out tremulously to Ray. "M-M-may I see your fingers?"

Without a trace of his previous aggression, Ray tucked his blade and launcher away as well and lifted up his hands, his jaw loose and eyes wide. Kai understood how he felt. He had forgotten what he had been planning to do once she had gotten this close.

He watched in a sort of dazed curiosity as she carefully took up Ray's hands with the tips of her fingers and brought her lips to his knuckles. Right as he thought, with an odd squirmish thrill, that she would kiss them, she stopped and those lips parted. A soft, almost inaudible hum filled the air, making the hairs on his arms prickle.

After a measureless span of time, she closed her mouth, drew back, and went to untying the bits of cloth. She tugged the first one free to reveal a perfect, unblemished finger. She checked it before moving on to the other fingers.

Kai couldn't help but smirk at the look on Ray's face. He could have been part way to heaven or part way to screaming.

"Do they hurt?" she asked.

It took a moment for Ray to respond. "N-No! They feel fine." He brought one of his hands back to inspect, all the lines of his face lax in awe. "More than fine. What did you do?"

"It's hard to describe," she gently dropped his other hand and curled her own back to her chest. "Sometimes, with certain people, if someone's, uh, blood is moving especially quick, I can hear, um…the bits in there reaching out for each other, and I just sort of speed them up. You know, speed up the wanting to heal, and for some reason your blood is especially loud and—oh gosh, that sounded so creepy." She covered her face with her hands. "Just-just make sure you eat something before you go to sleep and get lots of rest, okay? I'm sorry. I really am."

It wasn't until she didn't instantly turn and run away after saying that that Kai remembered about grabbing her. But, watching Ray stare at his healed fingers in stunned disbelief, he thought perhaps this might just work out without tying her up.

"Can you help us?" he asked.

She looked at him with wide eyes. "I…it's not that simple. I—"

She suddenly cringed, folding in on herself with a cry. Ray flinched back to attention and Kai stared.

"I-I'm sorry," she squeaked. "I have to—" she was interrupted by another attack of pain, and before Kai could do more than step towards her, she turned and sprinted into the shadows and vanished behind the dojo, where the exit would be on the other side.

"What was that all about?" asked Ray.

Kai just groaned and cursed himself. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. It never was.

"Shouldn't we have grabbed her?" Ray glanced at Kai's brow. "We should have asked her to fix the scratches on your face too."

"Just get to bed." And after kicking down what was left of their practice board, he went into the house, took a quick cold shower, and threw himself onto his futon. Later, when he was sure Ray had fallen asleep in his own futon not too far from his own, he went up stairs and passed out on Tyson's weirdly clean bed.


	7. Tiger in The Street

6

The coffee shop two blocks from Kenny's house was a relatively popular place at nine in the morning. College students and late riser business men sipped cups of coffee while reading the newspaper or debating to each other over their cell phones or articles in the Economist. Occasional the owners daughter, a pretty, curvy thing in her mid-twenties, came through to deliver bagels or other specialty items. It was no secret that Kenny took advantage of the coffee shop for their meeting place not just because it was close to his house, but because he loved to watch her behind the screen of his laptop.

Today, however, his mind was far from the pretty waitress.

"Why do things keep happening right after I leave? Why did I let you guys talk me into that? This is so unfair!"

"You think that's unfair?" said Hilary with a grimace as she poured extra cream into her coffee, which had already come out a light caramel color and was growing paler. "I finally wheedled Tyson into taking me to the movies and he goes into a coma. How's that for fair?"

"Woah, hang on," Ray dropped his Chai tea with a smile. "Did you just say you two were going on a date?"

She flushed, but made her usual show of hiding it by pushing on a cool, disinterested smile. "Hardly. But I guess to you lot that would be. Are you sure you're not gay? Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Kai and Ray gave her mirroring glares of annoyance, while Kenny urged her to lower her voice. He wasn't completely oblivious to the presence of his crush, after all. He didn't need homosexuality on top of his already long resume of updateable qualities to deter any chance with her.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't give me that. You guys have fangirls rolling out of your ears but in all the time I've known you only Max and Tyson have ever bothered to have a girlfriend, if you could call them that. Tyson's was more of a fan club and Max's was…" she sighed. "Let's not talk about that."

"You're the one who brought it up," said Kenny.

"Besides, shouldn't we be talking about something else? This isn't exactly the time to talk about our love lives," said Ray, leaning over his Chai rather broodingly.

Hillary eyed his change of position and took a sip of her coffee-flavored-cream. "There's a whole story right there, but I won't push it. You're right. We should be figuring out how to get out of this mess. Well, what do we have? I got the whole vibrations spiel from Kenny, but how do you plan on getting around that?"

"They're going to attack her!" said Kenny, hands tight about his hot cocoa. "They were practicing on this drawing of a person all last night and everything, you have to stop them!"

Hillary dropped her coffee with a loud clack of cardboard. "Excuse me?"

Kai sighed and pushed away his empty cup. He didn't have the energy to deal with their stupidity today. If they wanted to live in their PG rated world, fine. He wasn't even entirely sure why he had agreed to meet up with Kenny and Hilary here in the first place. Probably because Ray had been going. But when had he become such a lemming? Ray could take care of himself on his own, right?

Hillary stood with him. "Don't you dare walk away from me, Kai, explain yourself!"

"I don't have to." Kai dropped some change on the table for a tip. "There's two guys in the hospital that are all but dead to do that for me."

But even with that said, when he stepped out of the shop and into the sunlight he didn't head off in some random direction. Rather, he looped back and around the store, scaled a fence, caught onto a terrace, and shimmied his way up to the roof. There, he found himself a shady spot behind a transformer unit and kept his ears peeled for the sound of the others leaving the shop below. Like he would be stupid enough to leave behind his last teammate in times like this.

Besides, what other plan could there be? They had no choice but to wait for their enemy to find them once more, and then take it from there.

For the uptenth time that day, he cursed himself for not stopping the girl from leaving last night.

A clap of shoes landing on the roof broke him from his reverie not too long later. He instinctually tensed. Without looking, he knew who it was.

Aiming to keep up the impression of control, he didn't bother getting up and only glanced at her before closing his eyes once more. It was all part of the mind games you played with your opponent first. If you succeeded in unnerving them, you already won half the battle.

"If you're here to whimper apologies again," he said. "You can leave."

But she didn't say a word. Nor did she stay put. She walked towards him, her steps light and quiet as she rolled from heel to toe. Just as he thought to move for his blade, she darted forward, dropped to her haunches, and stopped his mouth with her fingers. They were soft and narrow, but her daring shocked him more than the actual contact. Her head momentarily blocked out the sun, giving him the full, up close view of the ethereal quality of her pale skin and thick silver lashes framing her eyes. He could make out the color of her hair now too. White. White as freshly driven snow.

The face drew closer. Too close.

Swearing, he shoved her back, pushing his back up against the transformer in the process. She landed with an 'oompf!' His heart raced in an abrupt panic. What could she have been trying to do?

"Get lost!" he snarled.

She shook her head furiously, putting a finger to her lips before mouthing, 'quiet.'

In any other circumstance, with any other person, he would have simply gotten up and left. It was more Tyson's style to just get louder after someone asked him to be quiet. It was more Kai's to not even give the offender the benefit of his attention.

But as his eyebrows had drawn together in a scowl, the gashes on his forehead reminded him of their presence. He realized she hadn't been drawing close as though for a kiss, but had been aiming her mouth upwards, towards his eyes.

Heart still puttering, holding his muscles taunt for a run in case she proved otherwise, he held still as she cautiously shuffle towards him. Eyes pleading, she once more put her finger to her mouth to urge him to be quiet. When he didn't push her away again, she knelt down next to his side and reached for his face.

He blocked her hands.

"I know what you want," he whispered. "Can you do it without…without touching me?"

She puffed a relieved sigh and nodded. He lowered his hand and allowed her to lean in. Only when a strand of her curling hair brushed against his brow did he catch her smell: a tang of something like cinnamon rolls and roses.

She gave a soft, low hum. Once more, the hair on his arms and neck prickled. A hot, tickling sensation flooded across his face to his brow.

Then he blinked and she was gone. He could hear the faint tapping of her feet before even those vanished as well. He touched where the gashes had been and felt nothing but smooth, heated skin.

"Ray Koh. Care to come outside for a bit?"

With a thrill of alarm, Kai jumped up to the edge of the roof.

Standing in the middle of the coffee houses outdoor tables and looking ever more a shark was the cause of their problems. After being exposed to the full view of her accomplices face, the tank beyblader looked even less feminine than the last time they had seen her.

Ray, Hillary, and Kenny piled out of the coffee house, drawing stares from the on looking customers at the tables.

"What will it be this time," said Ray. "I push your blade into the trash and you'll give me back what you've stolen?"

"Not as far as that," she said, tugging the collar of her business like, button up blouse as though preparing for an interview rather than a battle. "I was just thinking to the edge of the sidewalk? That's even a shorter distance than your friend."

"Why are you doing this?" cried Hillary, making Kai groan. It wasn't any of her business. It never was.

"Because I've been practicing my evil laugh and want to take over the world," said the woman sarcastically. "Come on, boy. Let's get this started. I'll leave the countdown to you."

As he kept an ear to the proceedings, he ran to the roof's edge, eyes open for signs of the singer. It was either get down there with Ray or stay up here to catch the girl the moment she opened her mouth. She couldn't be far. He'd have to go with that.

The onlookers started to murmur as Ray's voice pitched up. Kai couldn't see anything of her in the back of the building and started running towards the far side. The coffee building pressed up against another restaurant, the roof of which he leapt onto.

"Let it rip!"

No sooner had his feet hit the roof than the woman shrieked. "Where are you going?"

Ray let out a bark of laughter. "I haven't gone anywhere. I'm sorry, is Drigger too fast for you?"

Kai peered into the shadows of the back alley again. Nothing. Unless she was hiding beneath trash bags. He squinted down the length to see where the store complex ended and cursed. She couldn't have gone that far. She'd have to be close to hear. She'd have to. But, then, he knew nothing of how her ears worked, but she had always been close before.

A collective gasp sent him running to the front of the building again. Where the woman had been standing erect before was empty, as she had stepped back with a hand to her shoulder, skin folded about the sharp bones of her face in a snarl. A piece of white cloth lay on the pavement where she had been before.

"You—you can't—how did you just—"

"New rules," said Ray. "You hand over what you've stolen or I sheer the clothes off your body till I find them."

"This is a new low for the world champion. And with all these witnesses—what will they say when they hear you used your beyblade to coerce someone?"

Ray said nothing. Kai mentally berated his teammate for acting so impulsively. Once more she had caught them in a crowd, he should have at least had the brains to draw her to somewhere private before taking her challenge—or anything, really. Kai hadn't thought to bother telling him that as it had seemed well duh, and Ray out of all of them had a good head on his shoulder.

Kai set his foot on the edge of the roof. No. He wasn't about to let this happen. He wasn't about to let his teammate take this fall for his lack of forethought.

Already his launcher was out, Dranzer set for flight.

Hillary and Kenny had started up pleading Ray's name, as though they thought he would still go through with it. Kai knew he would. A place on the BBA roster wasn't worth anyone's soul.

But Ray still cared about that sort of crap.

The old training came back to him like riding a bike. He lined up the corner of his launcher, felt the habitual hitch in his breathing to still his arm, and let it rip.

Dranzer shot through the air like a bullet. People shrieked as all three of the large umbrellas on the tables suddenly tipped inward, their supports sliced clean through. Before they had even hit the ground, Dranzer was on her, whipping here and there, white blouse and the baggy pockets of the woman's shorts gone flying.

And although thin lines of red appeared on her thighs, no orbs fell out. The holster for her launcher and blades fell empty and exposed to the street.

She screamed profanities and threw down her launcher so she could slap her hands over the remains of her split blouse.

"Ayah! Ayah!"

A familiar ear-splitting shriek rent the air. Kai barely had the mind to lean back as his knees crumpled, throwing him back onto the roof.

But just as it fell away, a new sound replaced it. Thrumming, earthy, like a lion with a cello for a throat, purring.

Hillary's scream above it all made his blood go cold.

"Ray!"

 **Please let me know what you think so far.**


	8. Seize

7

That bitch's paralyzing-whatever-shriek had nothing on Boris's punishments, where you had to stand as fast as lightning after being flogged, or else you'd just get flogged again. Kai was up and running by the time Hillary's cry had ended. He latched a hand onto the short wall outlining the roof's edge and used his momentum to fling his legs out into the space. He swung down, catching himself on a window ledge, then jumped again and landed on his feet.

The white girl broke off mid-note with an 'eep!' from her position huddled behind an A/C unit. Before she could so much as breathe he had her head under his arm and her other arm twisted back behind her back.

"Thought I would let it slide if you fixed up some scratches, eh?" He tugged on the arm, making her yip with pain before pulling her along by her captured head out of the alley and to the chaos which had become the front of the coffee shop. He nearly got bowled over by the fleeing veranda sitters. Luckily, even when panicked, his glare had a way of getting others to avoid him.

The girl didn't fight him. He didn't think she dared.

He stopped where Kenny and Hillary crouched over a kneeling Ray. Drigger wobbled a few feet in front of him.

"Ray? Ray! Come on, speak to me!"

Kai gracelessly flung the girl besides Ray. She didn't quite manage to get her other arm around her in time to catch her and stumbled into Hillary, who yelped in surprise.

"What the—Kai!" She righted herself and the buggy clothed assailant. "Oh my gosh, are you—"

She stopped mid-sentence as Kai whipped out what could only be a heavy duty zip-tie and yanked the girl's hands about her. Kenny somehow found his voice at this point.

"What in the world are you doing?"

Kai didn't respond. He just pinched her wrists together with one hand and tugged the zip-tie close with practiced fingers. Once more, she didn't fight him, nor did she raise her head.

"You brought your car, Hillary?" he asked. Maybe she'd actually be useful in all of this.

"So you can truss back a tied up girl, like hell!"

"If you'd just wait a moment before getting violent—"

"Chief," said Kai in that tone he knew his team always obeyed. "I need you to take her picture and do a search." Kai was already searching her pockets, but so far he already figured there wouldn't be anything in there.

"Ray's not gone!"

Kai froze. So did Hillary. Just as the two turned their attention to him to stare, Ray groaned and shook his head.

"Ugh, my ears…my head…"

Kai snapped his eyes to the wobbling, but still spinning Beyblade in the street. Now that he was taking a closer look at the blade, there was barely any yellow in the middle, which there would have been if the blades bit had gone blank.

"I think she's done something to him because he still won't respond to us, but he's still here!" said Kenny, his hands wrapped tight on Ray's shoulder and arm.

And almost as though to prove what he said, Ray mumbled, "Chief, you're hurting me. Wha-what's going on?"

"I just meant to stun him, make it seem like I took his soul," said the girl, so quietly she could hardly be heard above the sudden blare of distant sirens. "I just—I just vibrated his bones a bit. I-I did it once before and the guy recovered after a few minutes, though the ears—the ear bones are so small and work off of vibration—"

Hillary gasped. "You made him deaf?!"

"No!" she cried. "No, no! I mean—at least I don't think—no!"

Kai finished checking her baggy, ratty cargo pant pockets and stood. Despite the relief that that prickled along his back, the cold hard plate that had fallen into place the moment he heard Hillary scream didn't leave. It wasn't over yet.

"We need to get out of here," he said, tugging the girl to his feet. "Cops are coming."

Kenny blanched. "The _cops_?!"

He looked at Hillary. "Car."

"Cut her loose first," she said, fisting her hands onto her hips as she always did whenever she became immovable.

Grunting in irritation, he yanked out his pocket knife and slid the blade between her wrists. He was just a bit too careless and grazed a bit of the skin before he pushed her into Hillary.

"We need her to get the others' souls out," he said, just in case Kenny had missed that part, and he had to speed things up. "Now _move!_ " He snatched up Drigger, then grabbed Ray's arm and yanked his belligerent friend up to his feet.

Kai just about never yelled at Hillary or Kenny, and his reward for his restraint was their flinching into action. Holding tight to the girl's wrist, Hillary pulled her across the street to where her old coupe clunker of a car waited. Kenny didn't even wait for Kai to pull back the passenger seat in order to wriggle in, he just scrambled over the center console and landed with a thump against the seat. Hillary was a bit more patient as she pulled back the driver's seat one handed and ushered the girl in.

"I'm sorry about this," she said.

Kai had already handed in a very confused and dazed Ray besides Kenny and sat himself in the passenger seat. The sirens were getting louder. "Hillary!"

"Gah!" She finally dropped into the driver's seat and closed her door. She shoved the key in and the old car started with a choke and grumble. "I can only move so fast. You don't have to be an asshole about it."

But they were moving, and that's what mattered. Kai glanced into the rearview mirror at the crowded back seat.

"Chief, how's Ray?"

Poor, rattled Kenny sort of flopped about before registering which of the two people he was squashed between Kai was asking about. He waved his hand in front of Ray's face, catching his attention.

"Can you hear me, Ray?"

Kai watched as Ray slowly blinked, a hand to his head. Then he swore. " _What's wrong with my ears?!_ "

"Jeeze! Can we please not yell in the car?" shouted Hillary.

"I don't think he could hear you," started Kenny, but was interrupted half way through by Ray once more demanding what had happened to his ears in an ever higher pitched voice.

"Could you have thought of any better way to be helpful besides breaking him?" asked Kai, turning his head around to glare at the frumpy, hooded girl. She cringed even further back into the corner.

"I-I-I can o-only do so many things, it was the only thing I could—they might just taking a bit longer to recover, but-"

Ray had gotten a hold of Kenny, still oblivious to how loud his voice was. "Chief! Chief, why can't I hear you? Am I crazy? This has to be a bad dream!"

Kai let out a quick sigh from his nose and whapped Ray on the knee. "Calm. Down." He said, slowly in hopes Ray could catch the words as he mouthed them.

"Ok, is someone going to tell me where we're going?" asked Hillary.

"Tyson's—"

Kai broke across Kenny. "Take a left after the next light, then go back south until I tell you to turn."

"What's wrong with the dojo?" asked Kenny. "We-we're not l-like on the run or-or something-!"

"The trouble with the cops will be minimal, but still a waste of time," _like explaining these things to you_ , Kai thought. "We're going to need some time to plan our next move. So," he looked back to the girl and clicked his fingers to get her attention, as she had gone to hiding her face against her shoulder. "Where are the orbs with Dragoon and Draciel?"

"I-I can take you there. It's just a house—"

"Will you release the bit beasts and our friend's souls? Can you?"

"Of course!" she squeaked, meeting his eye with something like alarm. "I really meant it when I said I meant no harm, but you need to start heading there now, because—"

She broke off with a sudden yelp and once more crumpled in on herself. Hillary jumped and the car swerved with a squeal of tires before she righted herself.

"Really!" she cried. "Enough with the yelling!"

"I think she's in pain!" said Kenny, who had pulled away from the girl and seemed reluctant to touch her, even though that was unavoidable in close quarters. "Wait, can you guys hear that?"

How Kenny heard anything at all over the road noise of Hillary's cheap car was astounding. "What's wrong with her?"

Kenny tried pulling back her arms, but the moment he touched her the girl started to twitch and spasm, choking on her attempts to scream. Hillary made the turn at the light and the girl tipped over onto Kenny, who also yelped and jumped back onto a startled Ray.

"She shocked me—oh my god, she's being electrocuted!"

" _Then figure out how!_ " barked Kai.

"Shut up all of you!" shouted Hillary. "Or we'll all crash and die!"

Kenny had fumbled into movement at Kai's command. His hands shook as he pulled down the girl's hood, revealing a large messy knot of curling white hair. Kai noticed the edge of the thick, plastic collar right as Kenny did.

"Kai-!"

"Here!" he practically threw his pocket knife at Kenny. It bounced between his hands before he got a good grip on it and went to flick it out, crying for Hillary to pull over just as he gave another shout.

"I can't touch her!" he wailed. "Kai, I can't—my muscles, they—the shock—"

The moment Hillary's tires screeched to a halt in an abandoned parking lot, Kai was out and over the car. He threw open her door and Hillary got out of the way. Kai leaned in, swiped the knife from Kenny, and reached for the spasming girl who now had pink foam trickling out of the side of her mouth. Her eyes had rolled up into the back of her head.

The pain came instantly. He clamped his hand in the curve of her shoulder and his muscles locked up and buckled at once, but he forced them straight. He ignored the pain, felt it like punches and flecks of metal, wedged his blade beneath the collar and _pulled._

He always kept his knife sharp enough to cut falling tissue paper. Still, it snapped off surprisingly easy.

Unbuckling his cramped up, burning fingers, he flung the collar onto Kenny's lapped and grabbed her under the armpits to pull her out. Hillary fluttered about like a midwife readying to catch the baby, and as the girl slipped out she took hold of her head and cushioned it with her hands as he spread her out on the asphalt. Kai held his breath as he put his cheek to her mouth and his fingers to her wrist.

Sure enough, her lungs and heart had seized up.

 **Please let me know what you think. ^.^**


	9. The Obtaining of Ayah

**At this point, I'm writing purely for pleasure. I don't think many are reading, but I'll keep writing. It's been a long time since I've written a story for me.**

8

He swore and started CPR. And yes, you idiots, he knew CPR. What kind of any self respecting team captain didn't know CPR?

"Hillary, ambulance!"

Ray had scrambled out by now and had fallen next to Kai's side.

"No," he muttered. "No. Is this why she—did they—"

Kai tilted back her head, pinched her nose, and covered her mouth with his own for a breath. She tasted just as she smelled, but with more sweetness and a lot less cinnamon. Like the roll with only its fresh out of the oven warmth and residual sugar.

"Hello? Yes, we have a girl who just got electrocuted, we're just off of eleventh north in a parking lot besides Yin and Yang Bookstore. Yes, my friend's on it—I-I think he knows what he's doing." Hillary lowered the mouthpiece of her cell phone from her mouth. "Kai, they said if you're not certified, you'll do more damage than harm. Maybe, um…"

But he ignored her, as he often did, and after a few more pumps between her breasts leaned down to give her another breath.

"Ray, her wrist—"

Ray was already on it, which was probably a good thing as Kai remembered too late that Ray couldn't hear. "I think I feel something. Is she breathing yet?"

Kai leaned his cheek to her mouth again. He couldn't tell. He could still see the whites of her eyes showing from beneath her lashes. At least Hillary had had the decency to wipe the foam from the girl's face as she lowered her head.

Kenny leaned out of the car like a kid about to be sick. "Don't tell me she's…"

Kai leaned down. This time, as he breathed out, he felt her lips twitch about his own. A gust answered him as he pulled away, shaky, weak, but her own breathing all the same.

"She's breathing," said Kai. He looked at Ray, who answered his look with a nod.

"There's a heartbeat."

Kenny slumped the last remaining foot between his torso and the floor of Hillary's car, letting his arms dangle to the pavement. Hillary gave a half-formed sob of relief and fell to her knees.

But Kai had never been good with holding still. "Chief, what can you tell me about that collar? Best get pictures as well before they confiscate it."

Rather than complain, Kenny gave a shudder and recoiled back into the car for his laptop. He came back out to examine the collar beneath the sunlight with Kai's dropped pocket knife in hand. After a few moments, in which he quietly adjusted Dizzy's camera and twisted the collar before it, he took the knife and cut down some of the plastic.

"I—Kai, I know even less about electronics than acoustics. But…this wiring here—it's thicker than the stuff you find in houses. Basic physics can tell me that means it can hold a buttload more current. And there's a microphone here—yes." Using the tip of the knife, he pulled out a round black bit with tiny silver wires sticking out from it like a four-legged spider. He made a small noise like a squirrel being stepped on.

"You mean they heard everything she said? Everything we said?" asked Hillary.

Ray scowled at the piece, unable to hear anything. But he wasn't stupid.

"Did you say microphone?" When Kenny nodded, he gave Kai a significant look. "Kai, last night when she abruptly had to leave—they must have heard all that. That must be how they keep tabs on her."

And why she had urged Kai to be quiet when she came to him on the roof to heal his face.

As he watched her chest struggle to rise and fall, it made sense to him. How else could they keep tabs on a girl whose very voice could give her power over her captors than via a microphone? They could record all the frequencies and tones she used, then when she tried to repeat said tones the collar might switch on automatically, shocking her, at the very least paralyzing her vocal chords—or perhaps they simply had to push a button the moment something other than words came out. There were a whole slew of twisted reasons proving the ingenious of the collar.

And the simple stupidity of it. He should have expected it. This was being more than just a little rusty.

"If she goes to the hospital," Kenny said. "Anyone could come and pick her up. They could come back, take her away…"

"The people who did this to her…" added Hillary, her hands fisting against the asphalt.

"But what can we do?" said Kenny. "We're just kids! Not even Kai's a legal adult yet, not by five more months! What if they have paperwork or something to back them up legally? What if they know her? Augh! If I just knew her name, maybe I could do a search on missing children—"

"Ayah."

Kenny stared at him. "Um, Kai?"

"Ayah is her name," he said. "It's what that woman always shouted before she started singing. I seriously doubt they were cute enough to make a little code word for a signal."

"Well, I don't have anything better to do while we wait here, might as well give it a look."

Kai glanced back down at the girl and noticed out of the corner of his eye that Ray's hand had switched from her wrist to cradle her hand between his own. He was shaking.

The Russian turned slipped off his scarf to fold beneath her head.

Hillary pulled up her knees to her chest and hug them tightly. "What kind of people would do such a horrible thing? What reason could they possibly have?"

Kenny's laptop binged as its browser opened and Dizzy's voice crackled from the speakers. " _Is it really that hard to figure? You've seen scientist kidnap a bunch of kids to an island in order to steal their bitbeasts, and you can't fathom why somebody would kidnap and then use a girl who happens to have a talent at sucking them out while ignoring the laws of battle which bit beasts adhere to?_ "

"Or anything else for that matter," added Kenny, fingers already flying. "With her talent the possibilities are endless. Who knows what you could do with the ability to create just the right resonance, within reason of course. And her ears—with hearing like that—"

"Nerd out later," said Hillary. "Focus on finding her."

"Of course, it's just," he looked over, frowning. "There are so many spellings of the name 'Ayah,' and her appearance is so exotic—I'm going to have to do a worldwide search. And I'm not a detective—"

"Stop telling us what you aren't and just do what you can!" snapped Hillary. "This isn't a time for excuses!"

For not the first time, Kai felt an upsurge of gratitude to Hillary. Out of all the people around Tyson, she seemed to be the only one with any sense of how the real world worked. Her means of going about waking up the others to reality however, namely Tyson, Max, and Kenny, were a bit wanting.

It wasn't long before the ambulance arrived. They all spread apart in order to give the paramedics access to her and Kenny relinquished the collar to them. At the tear of the Velcro on the neck brace, her eyes fluttered. A weak, gasping whimper broke from her lips.

Despite supposedly not being able to hear, Ray was back at her side, her hand in his.

"You're going to be alright. Everything will be just fine."

Kai didn't know what to make of that. Yes Ray was a good guy, compassionate, often the one to dress up the others' wounds or cook up homemade medicines for when they were sick, but this just seemed a bit too open for someone he had just met.

He didn't miss the look Hillary and Kenny exchanged with one another either. Nor the smirk that broke over Hillary's face.

"You better take him too," she said to the paramedics with a gesture to Ray. "Something happened to his ears in the accident. He can't hear a thing."

As though to prove that fact, Ray didn't look up at the mention of his name or when one of the paramedics clicked his fingers right next to his ear.

Thus, when one of the paramedics urged him to get inside as well, he didn't need encouraging. The other three were given reports to fill out with a due date and then left besides Hillary's car with the deflated weight of anti-climax.

But it didn't stay quiet for long.

"Ray is so in love."

"I think you might be right. But I don't blame him. Now that the panic has passed she really was beautiful, wasn't she?"

" _I'm not much of a judge for human beauty, as I'm always telling you,_ " said Dizzy crossly.

"Like a princess."

"Yes, very romantic," broke in Kai. "A princess with bloody foam dripping from her mouth and her limbs flailing about. Let's go."

Hillary let out a low whistle. "What's gotten into you, Kai?"

" _Is someone jealous?_ "

He didn't even respond to that. Why would he? The only thing he had felt like doing was whapping Ray over the head to knock some sense into him. Really, fawning over the girl who'd sucked out your friends' souls, willingly or otherwise, was just pathetic, let alone over an unconscious shock victim girl. Sometimes his whole sex disappointed him. The only thing pretty girls meant to him was danger. Example A: what had happened to his brain when she had leaned over him on the roof. What he should have done was knock her out cold. If she hadn't had second thoughts about singing out Drigger…

No. Jealousy was far from it. If anything, he was furious. Furious at himself.

"He's jealous," said Hillary.

Kenny gasped, sounding honestly impressed. "How can you tell?"

"Woman's intuition."

" _Or perhaps whimsical thinking,_ " said Dizzy.

Kai sighed. "Unless you want me to drive your car illegally-" And crash it into a ditch.

"We're _coming!_ Jeeze, get in already, Kenny. And just for the record, Kai, I am no one's chauffer, and that includes you."

"Duly noted."


	10. Glass, Guns, and Achilles

9

 _Once this is over_ , he thought savagely, _I am going back to Moscow and never coming back out. The others can have their bit beasts stolen twice over, I don't care._

It was probably because his arms felt like they might snap in two from bracing himself up for so long on a windowsill in the middle of the night. Said windowsill was attached to a closed window and was maybe three inches wide.

And set into the east wall of a mansion.

Said mansion was aglow with its garden lights, which could have served as spotlights for how few shadows they had left for him.

Kai's window just happened to be on the second floor in the only unlit, shadowing portion he had been able to find so far on the damn place. Luckily, ever bit of his pale skin had been painted over with leftover black Halloween paint he had found in Tyson's room. Sure saved him time on finding something like it in town when he couldn't be sure he wasn't being followed (the Abbey made one paranoid as an extra freebie). He had dressed in black and covered his palms with black athletic tape.

He strained his head back over his shoulder. He had allowed his neck enough time to rest in order to get the cramp out of it. He could see the black wire along the windowsill where the security system ran. Now he just had to make sure of the angle…

Knees popping, he crouched as much as he dared, arms straining as his center of gravity leaned farther and farther out of the tiny windowsills reach. His fingers found the edge of the decorative window shutters. Fast as he could, he whipped out the same pocket knife Kenny had used earlier that day and stuck the sharp tip onto the farthest square pane of the window. With one agile twitch, the corner of the glass snapped loose. Old fashion mansions did have one perk.

Legs trembling and knees screaming now, he dropped the knife on the sill, plucked the stretched out coat hanger being held to his arm by his wrist band, and eased it in. From here on out, he had to move by feel and memory, and hopefully not pull up the wire instead of the latch.

Sweat prickled down his forehead. He bit the side of his mouth so hard he tasted blood.

He was out of practice. But then, he had also had to improvise. Improvise a lot.

It was a good thing Ray hadn't come. What a whole bag of nightmares that would have been. But, as fortune would have it, he had been scheduled to have the delicate bones of his ears repaired, as they had simply become dislocated. Even so, after the girl had painfully traced out the map for him and wrote down all she knew of the security system, Ray insisted Kai remain with them. Kai said nothing. He just left. After all, he had never meant to give anyone the impression that anyone could order him around, for better or for worse.

Those big blue eyes, unclouded by messy hair or a too big, ratty hoodie, had pled with him not to go as well. Her voice had been shocked out, and the doctor's had predicted at least a few days before it would return in any amount. Even if she could have come, her greatest weapon was out of commission.

The window behind him gave a little click. His breath hitched, but the night remained quiet. Dropping the wire, he eased himself up and used the heel of his boot to lift the window open, lowered himself again, and back stepped into the opening, using his calves and hips to wedge it open large enough for the rest of him to get in.

The last thing he did before shutting and locking it was retrieve his knife from the ledge. After taking a quick glance at his surroundings (it looked like he had dropped into an unoccupied bedroom), he slipped out Ayah's map again just to recheck his location. She was no artist, but at least she had remember which side of the house the sun rose on, and you couldn't go too amiss with squares and lines.

Making sure to roll his steps from heel to toe, he weaved his way around the four poster bed and found the doorknob via the glow of the lights outside. No light came from beneath the door, but as he eased it open and slipped out, he found the hallway to be dimly lit by a light coming from around the corner. He could hear voices. Following the map in his head, he eased himself towards the light and the voices, praying the door would be mostly shut.

It wasn't. But the speakers were out of view, which mean he was most likely out of view as well. He darted past without any change in their voices.

"—there are only so many legal ways to force someone's hand, and I know you have no problem with the law, but I do."

"Which is hilarious, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you. Point being, if there could just be some way we could get Ayah in the same room as him as he beybattles—"

"And what? I've lost the sonoblade, and it isn't like we can just sneak another into the hands of whoever is lucky enough to battle him."

Kai had moved out of hearing range from the conversation. He was more or less sure they were talking about him, but he couldn't care less about hanging around to listen to their idiotic plans. The light from the room fell away as he turned another corner and stepped along the open balcony of a large, open foyer, lit only by dimmed lights in the corner. The huge crystal chandelier glittered serenely in the faint light, and Kai inwardly braced himself. Large spaces either swallowed noise or enhanced it, and based off of how many hard surfaces were in here to bounce off the noise, it would be the later.

He kept to the wall as he strained to see below. According to her map, the orbs would be in a hidden basement behind the library bookcase on the first floor. Unoriginal, yes, but classy enough. At least you didn't have to pull a certain book or a statue to open the door.

Without detecting any living below, Kai moved quickly. He never let his eyes lay still, looking everywhere for signs of life as well as hiding places should he detect them. As he reached the grand staircase that poured down into the foyer, he leapt onto a banister and slid silently down. Stairs were for suckers.

It wasn't till he crossed the elegant tiled floors and entered into the darkness of what could only be the library just off the foyer that it began to bother him how little resistance he had met. Sure these were only bitbeasts to the rest of the world, but usually anyone who went to the extreme to steal their's thought them pretty important. Important enough to protect with more than just a home security system, lights, and a few paltry security guards.

Course, he wasn't to the tough part yet.

He couldn't read the titles in the low light. Thus, after checking behind him, he slipped out a tiny, LED keychain flashlight and flicked it on to the spines. He strained for any noise as he scanned the titles with half an eye, the other to the doorway. It was as nice a library as one would expect in a mansion. Ceiling to floor bookshelves on every wall, a large fireplace, arm chairs and sofas for reading in the corners, and the carpet felt springy beneath his boot. Since it was only the size of your average garage, however, Kai wasn't impressed. His own library was three times this size, if that. If he could attribute any positive to his grandfather's childrearing abilities, it would be a respect and appreciation of books.

 _Alice in Wonderland_ flickered beneath the light. He grabbed it, along with the books on either side, and pulled them out. Sure enough, just as she said there would be, a retina scanner and keypad was on the other side.

He sighed to himself as he wiggled out a 12 volt battery, some thin wire, and a piece of gum. He chewed on the gum quickly as he also pulled out some simple scotch tape and set a few strips over the keys. Then, finally leaving his attention from the door, he spat out the gum, stuck the curved end of the wire in it, and curled the loose strands about the spring side of the battery. Then, putting the flashlight in his mouth, he set the gum against the eye scanner and pulled off the scotch tape, revealing fingerprints on the sticky sides. He lined up which buttons went with each fingerprint on the tape. The buttons six, five, two, and nine had been pressed. So it would be a combination of those four. After an experimental random push of the buttons, he got (from the blinking red light of error), that the combination had only four numbers in it.

Lucky day.

Careful to keep the last free bit of wire from touching the battery (since he had to hold it in his fingers as the gum was just gum, not super sticker for batteries), he tried the numbers. On the third try, the light flash green, and the retinal scanner started to glow.

That's when he completed the circuit.

These scanners were terrible sensitive, after all.

It flashed, hissed, and flickered off. There was a soft 'beep' and a latch unhooked. But as the door started to open, the engine that did so turned on with a rumbling growl. His heart jumped to his throat.

You'd think these fools would have the money to buy a high quality door!

The back of his neck prickling, he only waited long enough for the bookcase to slide open enough for him to squeeze through before he was sprinting—almost falling down a metal set of stairs, flashlight still held in his mouth. A safety light flickered on, but he hardly paid it any mind.

At the foot of the steps, the room Ayah had termed as 'her room' on the map spread before him.

What he saw gave the insides of his chest a nasty, painful jerk.

A giant incubator tube, large enough to hold a human, stood to one corner, filled with gently glowing green liquid. It had a base covered in buttons, and on the other side of it were walls of monitors, flanked by blinking computer towers and a few keyboards. On the opposite side of the room to his immediate right, and which he had to pass in order to reach the door he'd have to go into, was nothing other than a cage the size of a very small room. Inside was a pallet of a yoga mat and quilts on the floor and a bucket, which from the smell as he passed, was the 'bathroom.'

Evil scientist. Or, perhaps, just very rich hobbyists who didn't really know what they were doing.

The rumble of the bookcase's engine finally quieted just as he reached the door and found yet another keypad, though no retinal scanner. He tried the code for upstairs first, but it failed, and with a groan he yanked out the scotch tape again.

He had just pulled it back and matched up the keys when he heard a thud that echoed down the staircase. Clenching his teeth, he unhooked his launcher with one hand while the other tried out combinations.

The light flashed green and he was in. Heart in his mouth, he closed the door behind him, and not too soon as the automatic safety lights flickered on.

There, in the middle of the room in just a plastic container on a table, were the orbs. Tyson's blue-grey marble, what must have been Max's purple glass, and finally Ray's green jade. Tyson's and Max's glowed the faintest purple and blue.

He swiped them up in one hand and stuffed them into his pockets. Then, with steady fingers, he loaded up Dranzer and readied himself, blade aimed for the doorway.

It didn't take super hearing to catch the footsteps on the other side. So much for his plan of unscrewing the harddrives from the computers for Kenny. Poor guy would be so disappointed.

"We know you are in here," said a very familiar woman's voice. Kai smiled. "Come out now and we won't call the police."

It would actually be better if they did call the police. Kai didn't want them to bleed to death.

"Well, since 'now' essentially ran out…"

 _Just open the damn door._

The footsteps came up to the door. The keypad bleeped.

A roll of heat ran up his arm. Dranzer coiled within her blade, ready to spring.

The door opened with a burst of light—

His arm pulled back in the movement he knew better than breathing, fast as light—his navy blade shot out in a blur—

The scrawny woman and an older, dark, middle aged man shrieked in surprised pain as the calves of their backmost legs snapped back towards their knee, their Achilles tendon cut clean.

Kai ignored the blood. He shoved out between them, following the blur of his blade, and ever thankful that Tyson had kept that stupid ski-mask from his infamous door-bell ditch scheme. It wouldn't do to have them recognize him.

A mess of profanities and curses followed him up the steps, though they didn't manage to make any sounds that signified alerting someone until he had already made it to the top.

The mansion was coming alive. The sleepy lights of the parlor now blazed like the noon day sun, exploding the chandelier with rainbows and sparks. Feet thudded in the expanse, echoed by the halls.

Taking a sharp left, he ducked into what Ayah's map had said to be some sort of sitting room, though it turned out to be more of an office.

Dranzer whirled in and launched at the window like a bullet, closely followed by Kai.

The shatter was tremendous. Glass edges pulled over his skin like reluctant fingertips.

And he was out, rolling into the spot-light lit grass. His blade whizzed circles about him.

Fortunately, he had managed to pop out into an area not being immediately patrolled by a human body. He did hear several shouts in the not-so-far distance at his appearance, however, and allowed no pause in throwing aside the chair and springing to his feet. He flew across the grassy expanse, into the foliage, leapt up the wall and threw himself over with the force of his momentum. He rolled as he landed just to be running flat out once more, his blade still spinning alongside him. He'd need her out in case any other Achilles tendons got in his way.

Sure enough, the sound of a car engine roared up from within the grounds. As he scaled yet another wall of the neighboring suburb, the car squealed about in the street out front and bodies jumped out. Smirking despite himself, he ran along the wall top in the opposite direction and deeper into the shadows, beyblade leading the way.

And then the unmistakable sound of a bullet cracked on the stone beneath his feet.

Kai uttered a curse. How the hell had they gotten a hold of guns?

There was no avoiding it now. Pivoting on the spot, he jumped. Dranzer whizzed beneath him, and he manage to land with perfect balance.

He could see the shooters in the streetlights, rifle barrels set over the roof of their car.

It was no use. Dranzer wouldn't reach them in time. She was fast, but she had never been faster than a bullet.

In a desperate attempt to avoid what he knew was coming, Kai dropped off the wall. A crack rent the air, a thunderclap of pain burst along his side, and the earth knocked the air from his lungs.


	11. The Other Half of Bleeding

**To all you who have given the time to read this guilty pleasure of mine: thank you. I give a special thanks to Desires of Autumn Leaves, who is the reason I am putting up this chapter, since the ending of the last confused her.**

10

But he kept his eyes closed, focus tight on his foe, upon the bodies hidden behind the car.

A shrill scream told him Dranzer had found her mark. Pushing through the need for air and his stunned body, he somehow managed to get to his feet by the time she found her way back to him. With her by his side, he set off as fast as he could into the darkness of the neighbors back yard. Lights flickered on in the passing windows.

He found the back gate. He was out. He could see an alley, hear a nearby river.

Dranzer whizzed back and forth around him, unable to move slow enough to stay alongside him. He was slowing down.

He put a hand to the bottom of his ribs. A flesh wound. A graze. Bleeding like a crying nun, but a graze all the same. He should be able to move through this. He'd be fine. Dropping had been a good idea.

With a lung popping inhale, he ignored the pain and returned to a sprint. Stars burst in the corner of his view, but Dranzer didn't have to keep lapping back to him anymore. She was just ahead, whirring, humming in the night.

And hopefully Ayah's gray hoodie he wore would soak enough blood to keep it from dripping, as well as help Tyson's ski-mask keep them from recognizing just who broke in. Cops and the law were still quite real, after all.

He managed to use the hoodie and river water to wash off the black Halloween paint once he neared the hospital and was certain he had shaken off any pursuers. That same river took away the black athletic tape, hoodie, and mask, because Tyson didn't need to repeat the ding-dong-ditch scheme again. Or, rather, Kai wouldn't let him.

Graze or not, Kai's vision was still spinning by the time he managed to stagger into the ER room. The nurses accepted his muttered story of getting in a street fight with the expected titters and wheeled him off. No one thought twice about the beyblade and launcher in his pockets, nor did they bother to check the leather pouches on his belt that were supposed to be holding said beyblade and launcher. In the bright lights of the hospital, the glow of Tyson and Max's souls went unnoticed, even when a nurse unhooked his belt and set it in a cubby by his bed with the rest of his belongings.

Once they stitched and bandaged him up, he played the part of injured, frightened boy and managed to get into one of the spare beds in Tyson's and Max's room. _He just wanted to keep watch on his comatose friends. After all, they had been the reason those goons had attacked him in the first place._

It was a good thing none of his teammates were there to see this particular acting trick. Tyson would probably go into convulsions at the sight of Kai playing the traumatized, heart-sickened boy.

It worked though. They tucked him into the bed beside Tyson's, closed the drapes on the graying dawn, and set his cubby of his beyblade, belt, and any non-bloodstained clothes at the bottom of the bedside table. He was fed, given some boss pain killer through his IV, and left to his own devices by the nurses.

Only then did he allow himself to breathe.

 _Shame I couldn't grab some vodka and lemon juice on the way_ , he thought blithely. Not for himself. He wasn't a fan of blurring his mental processes (induce himself to be stupid? Really?). But alcohol and lemon juice made a brilliant quick, albeit painful, fix to a sick throat. It'd clear out Ayah's quick enough. Sneaking vodka into the hospital to give to a minor, on the other hand…

He let out a weak laugh at the thought. Break into a manor and high security secret basement, fine. Sneak vodka into the hospital and suddenly it's Tyson trying to sneak past Gramps after avoiding Kendo practice for a week.

He stopped quickly enough on catching the still faces of his teammates. The curtains had been drawn around to block the view, but then drawn back just a bit so the 'poor worried friend' could check up on them from his wounded position on his bed while keeping them hidden from anyone who might pass by in the hallway. They were the famous Blade Breakers after all.

Ray should have finished his procedure by now. He was probably asleep. Ayah would be sleeping as well. Electrocution wasn't exactly a pleasant experience.

Despite the fact that he had been up all night as well as most of the night before, he swung his legs off the bed. He shook his head in an attempt to shake off the heavy, prickling pain of his body earnestly begging for sleep. Blood loss, whatever pain killer they had given him, adrenaline drop…he'd have to make this quick.

Holding to his IV roller-pole-rack-thingy, he stood, waited for the spinning in his head to pass, and quietly eased himself out of the room.

The on duty nurse at the desk pursed her lips at the sight of him.

"I just have one more friend I need to check on," he said, making sure to make his voice pitch just right and duck his chin so his eyes looked wider.

She sighed. "Alright, you can drop in, but no disturbing anyone. You be quiet as the grave, you hear?"

He nodded fervently and then wished he hadn't. Blood loss was a bitch.

He told her Ayah's name, she noticed he had been there before, frowned, but got up and led him to the end of the hall. She opened up the door as quietly as she could. But, to both their surprise, Ayah was awake and staring out the window upon the pinking dawn.

"Can I have a word with her?" he asked.

The nurse ignored him. "Honey, you're supposed to be asleep. Having a rough time?"

Ayah looked about and nodded. Her eyes took in Kai with a solemn understanding. Some emotion he couldn't understand glittered there, which unnerved him. He could read people. Not many things slipped passed him, and Ayah had struck him as one of those girls who wore their emotions on their shoulders and faces.

"Would you like something to help you?" asked the nurse.

Ayah blinked, hesitated, but nodded again.

"Alright, you two can talk while I go and fetch that, but then both of you are heading back to bed." She gave Kai a stern look as though warning him not to do anything funny while she was gone before leaving. He rolled his eyes. What did she think he would do? Try to rape her with his side shot through? It would have been easier to just bring along his beyblade in a childish display of 'I just want to show her my beyblade' and murder her. That had been why the Abbey trained children beybladers in the first place.

Ayah watched him carefully as he limped in to her bedside.

"I got them," he said quietly. "If I can I'll bring you something to clean out your throat quicker, but, whenever you think you can."

Her eyes had flitted to his side. None of the bandages could be seen, and he wore a hospital gown and pants, so how she could tell where he was injured he didn't know. Then he remembered what she had said about hearing blood and the skin calling out across the chasm of a wound. He suddenly felt an uneasiness he hadn't thought to feel before. Just how much did this girl hear?

In the quiet that followed, there was nothing to distract him from the angelic, doll-like figure she made sitting in her bed with her mane of gently curling white hair swathed about her. A nurse must have combed it while he was gone. The curls hugged the curves of her face, her pale arms, and gleamed like freshly minted white gold.

His uneasiness grew and he averted his eyes. Attractive females were nothing but trouble. A liability at most.

"I'll be with Tyson and Max," he said.

With his message delivered, he hobbled out of the room and back down the hall to his own bed. He passed the still forms of Tyson and Max, swearing to them each within him that they would awake soon. Then, after slipping out the orbs of his friends and stuffing them under his pillow, right beneath his neck, he closed his eyes and allowed the sleep to overcome him.


	12. The Beginning of the End

11

Dreaming was never pleasant, and his subconscious was hardly ever indirect with all the troubles and emotions he signed off as unimportant or unnecessary.

Thus, he found himself in the bowels of the Abbey, closed in by dark bricks with the tang of his own blood in his nose. Whether he had blood in his mouth or in his nose or on his face, somehow it had always somehow ended up in the back of his sinuses, or at least the smell: coppery, like wet metal and salt.

But instead of Boris standing before him, whip at hand, and a trembling child next to him holding up a beyblade to practice on the unarmed Kai, Ayah stood there, somehow more beautiful and ethereal than he remembered her. Besides her stood a nonplussed Ray, Tyson, and Max.

"You know you deserved that," said Ray.

"How could you have done that to her?" Tyson asked, while Max shook his head.

Kai spat out the blood from his mouth and tried to speak, but as was often the case in his dreams, his voice didn't work. He growled and heaved air past his throat, struggling to protest, to say he didn't even know what he had done. He tried to stand, to move his arms, but when they didn't respond he looked down to see them bruised and bloodied, with the broken bone of his leg peeking out from his shin. Just as he saw it, he thought he could feel the pain.

He looked up, desperate to make his friends understand, terrified for them that they were even here. But when he looked up, they were already leaving, and only Ayah remained behind, looking down at him with that unreadable look in her eyes. It frightened him, and he hated that. Not much frightened him anymore. Or, perhaps, everything frightened him and he had forgotten what it was like to live without having to always be brave in order to function.

She leaned over him and reached for him with those perfect, delicate hands. He cringed. There was no way any woman should be this perfect. It was unnatural. It was inhuman. But of course she was inhuman. She could hear Ray's very bones vibrating and echo back their sound a hundred fold. She could probably hear the hum of his heart. She could probably just open her mouth and hum the tone that would make it explode.

The soft touch of her hands startled him. As she wiped at the blood on his face, the smell of blood faded. She had started to emit a sound that sounded so familiar to what she had made in the alley with Tyson, but it was somehow…upended. Fixed. Harmonized, so that it fell smooth on his ears. He watched as the broken bone sunk back into his leg and mended itself. The blood was vanishing.

There was a pause and a cough. Then she made the low hum for Max, once more upended and righted, and the rest of the bruises vanished. No wounds remained on him, and neither did the pain, but still he couldn't move. But why would she heal him? No one was just that kind. She must feel guilty—had to feel guilty for all the wrongs she had done him. For stealing the souls of his friends, for getting him shot, for throwing him into this dismal dungeon in the first place—

His vision clouded with rivers of gleaming white hair. It felt like silk against his skin. She had dropped to her knees between his legs, her hands splayed across his chest, and that indefinable emotion curling in her gaze like whirlpools.

He could smell her cinnamon bun rose scent. His mouth watered as he remembered her taste. As though called by his want, she brought herself forward, eyes fluttering close, and pressed her lips to his. Sweetness filled his mouth and a riotous hunger blossomed up from his naval. He never fathomed another human being could be so soft, so…so…

But what had happened to his hatred of being touched? To the disgust? To the creepy crawlies up his skin? He should be recoiling from her, imagining her softness as squishy, fatty flesh and her hands as pinching claws and weapons of blunt trauma. Her legs nothing but bone and muscle, her stomach nothing but a bag of organs…

So soft…

He woke up with a start as a weight sat on the edge of his bed.

"Wow, were you already awake?"

"Probably," said the second weight. "He's always been a light sleeper."

"Yeah, but those nurses juice you up with something, I'm telling you."

Kai stared at the two boys sitting on either side of his legs. They wore the same hospital gowns as him and the morning sunlight gave them an almost picturesque glow.

Tyson and Max.

"How you doing, buddy?" asked Tyson, his cheesy grin widening. "Miss me?"

"Miss you? He probably wishes you were still gone, heh."

"Aw, come on, Max, he's not that heartless."

A rock had formed in his throat. A weight lifted off his shoulders, and, for a brief moment in time, he was completely content with his place in the world. Smiling weakly, he reached out to grip Tyson's forearm, ignoring the protesting pain at his side. It showed how much they actually understood each other when Tyson didn't make a big deal out of it, though he did move out of Kai's grip so they could grip hands, grinning.

"I never have to worry with you, Kai," said Tyson.

Max reached out for his other hand, which Kai gripped just as hard.

They were here. They were safe. He could breathe again.

Pulling his hands away, he reached under his pillow to find the orbs right where he had put them. He handed them to Max and Tyson, who gave them curious looks.

"Ask Ray for the story," said Kai lowly so as to hide the emotion in his throat.

"You mean there's a reason you gave me a paper weight?" asked Tyson.

"It's not a paperweight, idiot, it's what they used to suck up Dragoon and your soul," said Max with no lack of drama

Tyson squawked and dropped the heavy orb, barely missing Kai's leg. "That thing sucked up my _soul?_ "

"No. You just woke up in a hospital because you were abducted by aliens," said Kai dryly.

"The doctor's said my soul was stolen?"

Max groaned. "Tyson, breakfast."

That was reminder enough to get them both off of Kai's bed. Promising to bring him back something, the hyperactive duo sped out the door and down the hall. As the welcome quiet settled back in the hospital room, Kai found himself missing their company. But not too much. It was enough to sit in the quiet and appreciate the relief that wanted to overwhelm him. It wasn't till then that he realized, since he really was a light sleeper, Ayah's singing must have woken him up. But as he recalled his dream, he also realized his brain couldn't've made up those noises. That must have been her, and his sleeping brain had incorporated the music into his dream.

Tyson had left behind his marble, though Max had taken his. Kai picked it up and watched the sunlight play on the smooth surface, not really thinking anything in particular. He'd have plenty to think about later. There were precautions to make, pits in the road to avoid. One didn't go around maiming people for life with their blade and carrying on as though nothing had happened. Though, and he thought this with a self-satisfied smirk, shooting at him had made things a lot easier for him. It would be difficult to hide their use of illegal firearms should they try to accuse Kai of attacking them—that is, if they ever figure out that it had been him.

As he thought this, he leaned gingerly out from his bed, blessing the pain killers, and plucked out Dranzer from his belongings. Being sure to push against the blunt ends of the obsidian blades, he twisted off the specialized ring and slipped it into the pouch of his belt. Then, from the pockets of his jeans, he pulled out Dranzer's original, BBA approved attack ring and twisted it back on. He'd have to soak the other blade in alcohol as soon as he could. Just in case. Blood was terribly clingy, after all.

"Kai,"

Ray stepped in, a bandage about his head to hold squares of gauze over his ears. Kai frowned at the tiger's grim expression.

"Tyson and Max," he said.

Kai nodded. "Ayah pulled through."

Ray shook his head, the heavy line between his eyebrows deepening. "She did. But she shouldn't have. She's sedated in her room now with a tube down her throat because it swelled up so much she couldn't breathe. She…she was coughing up blood and everything."

A strange shock ran through his system. His dream drifted to the forefront of his mind, and he didn't like it. Nor did he much care for how the imagined softness of her hair and body made him feel guilty. He hadn't told her to fix it right away. He had clearly said 'when she was ready.' And now she was already wrapping Ray about her finger. Every little wrong, every little hurt, and Ray would be like this: brow solemn and telling Kai about it as though it were their fault—or just his.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

Ray's expression went lax with surprise. "I—I thought you'd like to know. She even tried to run away like that, coughing blood and wheezing. That's why they had to sedate her." He bit his lip and looked to the floor. "Maybe…maybe we should thank her."

Kai didn't like this. "She's the reason we're in here at all, including you."

"They made her—"

"No one can make you do anything. They coerced her, but it doesn't change the fact it was her throat who landed us here. She was simply fixing her wrong. Not having the patience to wait long enough until her throat could handle it was her bad, unless you want us to thank her for tearing herself up for no reason."

Ray just gaped at him, and not in a kind way.

"They almost killed her!" said Ray. "She did everything she could to protect us—"

"You don't even know the whole of it," snapped Kai. "You think she did that just for us? They were keeping her in a cage like an animal, Ray. I even saw the bucket they gave her for a bathroom. How do you know she didn't just use us?"

"She wouldn't—can you blame her? That's just more—"

"No. It's just you trying to justify your attraction to a pretty face. You're a bleeding heart."

Ray opened and closed his mouth for several seconds, flabbergasted.

"Oh," Kai had almost forgotten. "It's good to see you're hearing is back. Pity she couldn't think of something else to do besides nearly destroying your hearing."

"What is your _deal?_ You can be cold, Kai, but I've never heard you talk so much on it. Usually you'd just 'hn' or 'hmm' like you usually do and shrug, it's almost as though you actively hate her!"

Kai shrugged. "Maybe I do. She did get me shot."

This made Ray flinch. "Shot? By a gun?"

"Well, it sure wasn't a bow and arrow."

"You can't blame her for that!"

"Oh, but I can."

Face now flushed with anger, Ray clenched his teeth and curled back his lips, flashing his long canines. Without another word, he spun about and left, leaving Kai almost as hot. But Kai told himself that if Ray had the experiences he did, that if Ray had grown up beneath fists and stones, he would understand. His team was just naïve. They didn't know how the world really worked.

And he didn't want them to know either.

 **To be continued in the sequel, "Before Beasts, There Was Fire."**


End file.
